History of Beer Steins

The word stein is a shortened form of Steinzeugkrug, which is German
for stoneware jug or tankard. By common usage, however, stein has come
to mean any beer container - regardless of its material or size - that
has a hinged lid and a handle. Tankard would be more technically
appropriate than stein, but these two words are used interchangeably
in this book. Be warned, however, that some people reserve the word
tankard for the all-pewter or all-silver varieties of steins. One
final definition: mug is universally used as the name for those
vessels that have handles but would never have had a lid.

Earliest Steins: 1525 - 1700

From about 1340 until 1380, a bubonic plague, or Black Death, killed
more than 25 million Europeans! As horrible as this historic event
was, it prompted tremendous progress for civilization. And, of
interest here, it is also responsible for the origin of the beer stein.

Recall from above that the distinction between a mug and a stein is
the hinged lid. This lid was originally conceived entirely as a
sanitary measure. During the summers of the late 1400s, hoards of
little flies frequently invaded Central Europe. By the early 1500s,
several principalities in what is now Germany had passed laws
requiring that all food and beverage containers be covered to protect
consumers against these dirty insects. The common mug also had to be
covered, and this was accomplished by adding a hinged lid with a
thumblift. This ingenious invention was soon used to cover all German
beverage containers while still allowing them to be used with one hand.

This covered-container law and several other public health laws were
enthusiastically passed and vigilantly enforced as a result of public
fears about a return of the Black Death. In the period from Roman
times to the 1300s, sanitation had continually declined. During the
years of the Black Death, it became obvious to all, with 95% of those
in filthy areas dead and only 10% dead in clean surroundings, that the
plague was somehow related to unsanitary conditions.

The covered-container law was only one in a whole series of sanitary
regulations that were passed in Germany after the plague - pigpens
could not be adjacent to streets, old or diseased meat had to be
labeled as such, and beer could be brewed only from hops, cereals,
yeast, and water.

Strictly enforced regulations concerning the quality and transport of
beer in many of the German provinces resulted in a tremendous
improvement in the taste of beer, and also had an impact on stein
making. Many records show that average beer consumption increased to
about two liters per day in many places. Beerhouses, city hall
cellars, and taverns began to proliferate in the 1500s. There is an
old saying: "The German will place great value on that which brings
him his food or drink." Everyone in Germany needed a personal drinking
vessel to be proud of.

Local brews in many other parts of Europe were still being made with
rotten bread, cabbages, eggs, and anything else at hand. Soon the
Bremen, Hamburg, and other clean northern Germany beers became famous
and were exported throughout northern Europe, and even as far as the
East Indies and Jerusalem. Such beers raised a new need for relatively
inexpensive, but durable, large containers - the search for
appropriate materials was on.

As for individual beer vessels, up to the 1400s, well-to-do Germans
had pewter beakers. A few of the wealthiest even had silver vessels.
These metal containers, and those made of glass, remained too
expensive for general use or for large containers. Some wooden beakers
were used, but other than wood, porous earthenware was by far the most
common material for beer beakers, mugs, and the larger containers.
However, both the wood and the earthenware broke easily, which may
have been a blessing because these materials absorbed beer, giving off
a smell that got worse with each subsequent use.

Scientific experimentation was begun to try to improve the
earthenware. The all-powerful Roman Catholic Church, long at odds with
science, would previously have squelched all such scientific inquiry.
During the Black Death, churches claimed prayer would end the plague
and sometimes announced that Revelations had begun. In either case
they lost some of their hold on the public, and more pragmatic
scientific views began to prevail. The subsequent rise of science and
its marriage with art has been credited with starting the Renaissance.

The obvious earthenware experiments involved raising the firing
temperature past the usual level of 500°C (900°F). Higher
temperatures, however, could not be achieved merely by throwing more
wood into the furnace; they required new furnace designs. One such
invention, which produced temperatures up to 1200°C (2200°F), had a
furnace on the lower floor, and above it, through some slats, a
ceramic firing chamber entirely enclosed in brick, except for small
flues. At these extreme temperatures, not only was all the moisture
driven out of the clay - as in earthenware production - but also the
clay vitrified, or partially melted, into a solid stone-like material,
hence the name stoneware.

Stoneware required days of firing and dozens of cords of wood, but the
product proved to be far superior to earthenware. It is resistant to
chipping and cracking, and is not porous, resulting in a much more
sanitary container. The high cost of stoneware steins, especially after the
covered-beverage-container law required lids, made steins worthy of
some fine decorative ceramic art. Renaissance artists supplied many
designs for applied and carved stein decorations, and colored glazes
complemented these designs nicely. A clear saltglaze had been invented
about 1400, and a blue glaze from cobalt oxide was also known at that
time. A chocolate saltglaze was invented in the 1600s, and a manganese
oxide purple glaze was invented around 1650.

Tankards were soon decorated with shields and historical, allegorical,
and biblical scenes. Beer drinking had now also become a pleasure for
the eyes! And the landless day laborers, the masses that had survived
the Black Death, were in a position to command higher wages for their
services. This meant they could afford a few modest luxuries, and the
personal tankard became an important status symbol and display piece
for these Germans.

Once again, consider the historical situation. The guild system was
well in place in the 1500s and guild representatives held powerful
positions on the city councils. Although no records of it exist, the
Pewter Guild was no doubt an important sponsor of the
covered-container law that prompted creation of the beer stein. The
Potters' Guilds are known to have continually pushed up minimum
standards for the quality of both the decorations and the stoneware,
thus making steins increasingly attractive.

The Black Death, by depleting the population, had created a surplus of
food, especially grains. Much of this surplus grain made its way into
local beers, making a fine, pure beverage really worthy of
celebration. Eventually, large quantities of surplus grains made their
way to the breweries in the north. (There were only a few cloister
brewers in the south at that time.) In the 1500s, Hamburg had 600
breweries, producing 25 million liters of beer and directly or
indirectly employing half of the population of that city.

Initially, a few glass bottles were made in Delft to be used for
shipping some of that northern beer. But soon the fine clay of the
Cologne area was used to make large stoneware jugs. The shipping
industry was rejuvenated, and the beer export and stein-making
businesses boomed, producing some extremely wealthy merchants.

Such wealth did not go uncontested, and the resultant Thirty Years'
War had changed many things by its conclusion in the 1640s. It was a
war fought with fire. Virtually all of the northern breweries were
destroyed, and most of the southern vineyards as well. A few southern
breweries in cloisters survived and, more or less by default, Bavaria
became Central Europe's beer land. Beer soon replaced cider and wine
as the beverage of choice throughout Germany.

An expanded new market for beer steins developed, and the stoneware
industry from the areas of Kö1n and Koblenz responded. Pewter, silver,
and glass luxury steins were also available, but the Chinese
connection for the luxurious Ming porcelain mugs had been disrupted by
rebellions in China in the middle 1600s. No one in Europe knew how to
make porcelain, but several German potters were quick to jump in with
a porcelain substitute: faience.

Faience is earthenware with a porcelain-like white glaze made from tin
oxide. German faience was not as durable as the Chinese porcelain, but
it was far less expensive and had two aesthetic advantages. First, the
motifs on German faience were popular late-Renaissance and
early-Baroque designs, not foreign-looking Chinese figures. And
second, the cobalt oxide of China was contaminated with purple
manganese oxide, and the Persian cobalt oxide that the Chinese artists
sparingly mixed in would often diffuse badly. The purer German cobalt
oxide supplies were bright blue and allowed for crisp lines. So by the
time the Chinese porcelain supply was re-established, German faience
had gained a firm hold on the stein market.

Transition Period: 1700 - 1850

Throughout the 1700s, the Pewter Guilds maintained their tight hold on
the covered-container law. It seems certain that this involvement was
responsible for keeping the lidded design of the stein from
disappearing since there has always been a tendency to return to
beakers and a master stein, or to find some other way of getting
around the expense of an individually hinged lid. Yet by the end of
the 1800s, when the covered-container law was apparently no longer in
force, over 300 years of conditioning had taught Germans to view a
stein as incomplete without a lid. Thus, steins with lids are here to
stay.

Many of the trends that were in place just before 1700 continued to
strengthen thereafter. For example, by 1750 there were over 4000
breweries in Bavaria. And the art and production of stoneware and
faience steins increased substantially, all the way into the late 1700s.

European porcelain was invented in 1709 but did not begin to have a
noticeable impact on stein making until the 1720s. Several porcelain
factories were started in the 1700s, but their products were very
expensive. Only the wealthiest Germans were drinking beer from
porcelain or glass vessels at that time.

The quality and taste of beer "the flowing bread" continued to
improve. Besides offering taste and fellowship, beer was considered to
be important for the constitution, with the ability to induce
strength, health, and relaxation. From the earliest times right up
into the 1800s, many considered beer to be the most effective medicine
known - the drink from the gods.

Although glass beer beakers were used in Roman times, the Church
viewed glassmaking as heathenish and suppressed its production during
the Middle Ages. The art of making and enameling glass was not
relearned by the Germans until the late 1500s. These early enameled
items were mainly beakers and pokals.

A few engraved glass steins began to be used in the 1700s. However,
partly because of their fragility and partly because their costliness
limited the number produced, not many of these early glass steins
still exist. The color of this glass was almost always clear, which
required some special efforts to achieve because the usual Waldglas of
the time was partially made with wood ashes that caused a definite
greenish tinge. The use of clear glass would seem to support the
theory that an important feature of the early glass stein was to show
off the rare clarity and color of the costliest beers that were
brought from some distance.

Toward the end of the Baroque period, around 1800, pewter and silver
tankards were still uncommon in Germany. However, the English, and to
some extent the Scandinavians, had by now adopted the finished look of
a lidded mug. And except for a few ceramic factories, they were making
pewter and silver steins exclusively.

The Scandinavians had also perfected a method of making a nice
all-wooden tankard, complete with a wooden hinge. The few German
wooden steins from this period generally have pewter mountings and
pewter overlaid designs, and even these were no longer being made by
1800.

Horn drinking vessels, so popular in Roman times, did not adapt well
to the covered-container law and became rare. Ivory steins were made
only for the exceptionally wealthy.

In the 1600s, it was rather easy to determine a stein's origin; every
small region had considerable pride in its own typical form. The
Bohemian, Austrian, and other southern tankards were wide and sturdy.
Sleek and tall drinking vessels were preferred in the northern areas.
The western steins were gray stoneware with blue decoration and the
eastern steins were brown-glazed stoneware.

During the 1700s, shape became less important. The faience steins
predominantly assumed a pleasing cylindrical shape about twice as high
as wide. Stoneware, glass, porcelain, pewter, and other steins soon
followed suit. Regional differences of shape and size were replaced by
differences in materials and motifs.

Soon after 1800, another transition began that was as significant and
unpredictable as that which brought on the Renaissance. The Napoleonic
war and other rebellions of the time so diminished the aristocrats'
wealth and power that the newly monied middle class became the most
important market for steins and other artistic products. This middle
class cast off the Baroque extravagances, preferring instead a sturdy,
functional folk art. This era is known as the Biedermeier period.

Also around 1800, secularization had resulted in the closing of many
monasteries, but there were enough private breweries to assure that
cloudless beer, without dregs, would still be available to the masses.
And perhaps pride in the appearance of the clear beer led, in part, to
a major influx of glass steins into the marketplace soon after 1800.
These glass steins usually carried enameled folk art designs.

The straight-sided, cylindrical pewter tankards also became very
popular at this time. Engraved or stamped designs were common,
especially those using the same type of folk art motifs. Occasionally,
pewter steins with remnants of painted decorations are found from this
period. Considering that paint applied to pewter is not durable, this
type of decoration must have been quite common to still be visible on
any surviving examples.

Porcelain and silver steins continued to be made in the early 1800s,
always with the Renaissance and Baroque designs that still appealed to
the wealthy.

In the early 1800s, the preference of the masses was so clearly for
glass and pewter that nearly all of the faience workshops were
permanently closed. Most stoneware manufacturers stopped making steins
and turned to everyday items such as bowls, jars, and wide-mouthed jugs.

The Villeroy & Boch firm of Mettlach was established at this time.
Although the family was wealthy, the von Bochs? plates and other
utilitarian items had to appeal to common tastes in order for the
company to stay in business. However, as the Biedermeier period was
drawing to a close in 1850, the Mettlach factory, with its
aristocratic owners and classically trained artists, was ready to
respond to the upcoming change in artistic tastes.

During the early 1800s, many archaeological expeditions had uncovered
outstanding examples of Greek, Roman, and Renaissance art. By about
1850, the public had been so captivated by the beauty of these finds
that they were ready to forsake the mundane, functional styles of the
Biedermeier period.

The Golden Era: 1850 - 1910

By 1850, art instruction consisted entirely of having students copy
the forms and designs of the archaeological finds from the Renaissance
and Classical periods. The new style that resulted has been called
neo-Renaissance and neo-Classical or, more commonly, Historicism. As
for beer steins, the white clays of the Kö1n area were again used to
make stoneware steins with Renaissance allegorical motifs. These
steins have gray saltglazed relief decorations and often have inlaid
porcelain lids.

In later years, a major resurgence of interest in stoneware steins
resulted when Reinhold Hanke of the Westerwald region made blue and
purple saltglazed Historicism pieces. Molds were used to avoid the
manufacturing expense encountered with the labor-intensive originals.
The molded products were no longer unique steins ? they were
mass-produced, as their seams clearly attest. But there was an
artistic advantage to using molds, and Hanke, Dümler, and other
stoneware manufacturers exploited this to the fullest. The advantage
was that molds could be used to quickly reproduce painstakingly
carved, elaborate relief-work on hundreds of steins.

In the second half of the 1800s, glassmaking techniques had progressed
enough to allow molds to also be used to mass-produce glass steins.
The surprising sturdiness of the thick molded glass steins no doubt
helped to increase their popularity. Other glassmakers? tricks were
also applied to glass stein production. Multicolored glass overlays,
acid etchings, staining, and pewter overlays were used to make some
rather spectacular glass steins.

Advances in the use of moisture-absorbing plaster molds helped the
porcelain stein manufacturers. These molds allowed novel shapes to be
produced, making the so-called character steins much more common.
Also, due to the variation in the thickness and thus the translucence
of the porcelain, molds could be used to create the lithophane scenes
that are visible in the bottom of many porcelain steins.

The Mettlach factory, with its classically trained artists, was quick
to introduce the Renaissance motifs into its new line of relief
steins. Experiments with glazes and clays led to some new, brightly
colored Mettlach steins of the mosaic and etched types. These were
popular enough that many laborers were willing to spend a week?s pay
on one of these beautiful steins.

By the 1900s, the designs and motifs of Historicism had begun to lose
favor and to be replaced by town scenes, occupational emblems, common
social scenes, and commemoratives, particularly of military service.
To meet these diverse new demands, many potters entered the market
with stoneware or glazed pottery steins.

A new art style, Art Nouveau, was gaining limited popularity when,
around 1910, political and economic turmoil threw the stein industry
into a tremendous slowdown. With the subsequent outbreak of World War
I, the materials and labor needed by the pewter industry were
converted to use for munitions production, and stein making virtually
ceased.

The Modern Period From 1920

Production of stoneware, glass, and porcelain steins, especially
character steins, increased during the 1920s, Except for slowdowns
during economic and political disturbances, notably during the early
1930s and the early 1940s, substantial quantities of steins have
continued to be manufactured.

The modern period owes a great debt to Historicism and its reverence
for Classical and Renaissance art. It was during the Historicism
period, from 1840 to 1900, that most of the great public museums were
started. The general public, not just the art intellectuals, now
wanted to see artistic masterworks, including Renaissance steins. This
appreciation for antique steins led to museum and public collecting of
steins.

Antique stein collecting has been a major force shaping stein
manufacturing in the modern period. First in about 1900, then again in
the 1920s, good quality reproductions of antique steins were made,
particularly in faience and pewter. Many of these early reproductions
are clearly marked and are obviously not intended to fool antique
stein collectors. The exceptions to this are some unmarked
reproductions of Renaissance stoneware, early pewter, and some rare
faience pieces that had reached remarkably high prices in the
marketplace, even at the turn of the century. These are the steins
that require the closest scrutiny to determine authenticity. It has
really only been since the 1960s or 1970s that most types of antique
steins have attained a value high enough to consider reproducing
steins for the purpose of deception.

One major new direction in stein production in the Modern period,
especially since World War II, has been the introduction of tremendous
numbers of relief pottery steins. The last forty years have seen many changes, with economics playing a
key role. America has been the primary market for new beer steins of
most types, especially the limited editions. Some companies have been
very successful, while others failed to cope with the competition and
have stopped producing steins.

In the early 1970s, Ceramarte of Brazil entered the stein-producing
business, rapidly becoming the largest producer of beer steins in the
world.